


Baby, Look at the Stars

by DeceasedRaven



Category: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-02-08 15:46:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12867816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeceasedRaven/pseuds/DeceasedRaven
Summary: The College AU nobody asked for but that I wrote anyways.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I have never been to Georgia State, nor do I know anyone that goes there. I will be taking many, many creative liberties since I know practically nothing about Georgia and even less about Georgia State.

“Honey, we’re here!”

I unstick my forehead from the passenger seat window and look up. Masses of people, most of them students and their parents, roam the sidewalks and tree-lined paths beyond our car. They’re swarming in and out of traffic, making it difficult to find anywhere to park. I catch the eye of a guy passing by and smile. He has the same combination of excitement and terror on his face that I must have. It's hard to believe I’m finally here.

College always felt like a kind of impossible dream. Somewhere other than Creekwood, where people weren’t judgmental, and teachers didn’t seem like they’d rather be doing anything other than teaching? Yeah, right. But I was finally at Georgia State, a moment I had dreamed about all summer. 

At first I had protested going somewhere so close to home. Ever since Alice got into Wesleyan, I had dreamed of following her to a small liberal arts school up north. But I ended up getting into Georgia State’s honor college with a scholarship, and since Nick and Leah were both going to be in Atlanta (Nick had a soccer scholarship to Georgia State and Leah was studying art at SCAD), it felt like it was meant to be. 

Mom finally finds a spot and I hop out to grab my bags. 

“Nora, let’s go. Simon packed the entire contents of his room and these boxes won’t carry themselves,” my dad says as he grabs three duffle bags and shoots me a grin. 

I can’t really argue with him—I may have gone slightly overboard, but I couldn’t bear to leave anything behind. 

We walk a block to Patton Hall, where I’ll be living. By some incredible miracle I have a single on a co-ed hall. I was randomly assigned to my room and can’t exactly switch, but my parents had still wondered if “there wasn’t another building I could live in”, one where I “wouldn’t be in such close proximity with the opposite gender.” I tried not to burst into hysterical laughter at that one and assured them I was mature enough to handle it. 

We enter the lobby and are greeted by the peppiest person I’ve ever met. 

“I’m Lindsey, your RA,” she says, shoving a dozen pamphlets, fliers, and envelopes into my arms. “And I am so, so, so excited to meet you. You just need to sign this dorm agreement, and then you can have your room key! This is so exciting, isn’t it?” 

I nod quickly and glance at the agreement, before scrawling my signature at the bottom. 

“Perfect! You’ll be on the third floor, room 215.” 

“You’ll have a view,” my dad says. “Of the concrete!” 

Nora rolls her eyes and I smile at her. I’ll miss her, it hits me, and suddenly my eyes feel kind of tight. 

My mom is already up the stairs, so I follow behind her trying not to bump into anyone. It’s kind of overwhelming, honestly. There are literally hundreds of people bustling around—stressed parents carrying mini fridges, younger siblings getting tangled underfoot, and then, there’s the students. There’s one girl carrying a backpack with about two dozen anime patches and pins who reminds me of Leah walking with another girl with bubble gum pink hair and a towering stack of books in her hands. There’s a huddle of guys who are clearly football players and I try not to stare at their enormous biceps. There’s a lanky boy with shoulder length hair carrying a beat-up guitar—for half a second, I think it’s Nick, before I remember he lives on the other side of campus. There’s another guy chatting quietly with his dad and I blush because—well, how do I put this?

Okay, I’ll confess. After declaring Georgia State, I got added to the class of 2019 Facebook group. I wanted to see who else had been added and was scrolling through the members’ list, when I came across a couple of guys I just had to thirst-stalk, because they were hot and—do I really need any other reason?

Now here was one of them standing in front of me, completely oblivious to who I am, and I force myself to keep moving because it would _not_ be a good look to drool all over some guy my first day here. 

Finally, we make it up to my floor and I stop at room 251, except there’s already a girl trying a key on the lock. She has close-cropped curls and is wearing an Oliver shirt. 

“I was in the show, too! Who’d you play?” 

She turns to smile at me and leans against the door. 

“Nancy. You?”

“One of Fagin’s boys. But one night our Oliver fell backwards off our ten-foot platform, and I caught her, so I dubbed myself MVP of the show.” 

The girl giggles and holds out her hand. 

“Abby,” she says.

“Simon.” I shake her hand and smile. Maybe meeting people in college won’t be as hard as I thought. 

“So…Simon did they give you a roommate after all?” my dad asks and Abby frowns, then looks down at her room key envelope.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry. I’m 257. Wow, okay, I’m off to a good start. It was great to meet you, Simon,” she says, taking off down the hall. 

We enter the room and it’s…well it’s kind of tiny, but I have my own desk and a closet and a huge window that overlooks the park. I throw my things down on the carpet, but before I can take a breath, a guy comes barreling through the bathroom.

“Hi, I’m Garrett,” he announces and proceeds to shake hands with me and every member of my family, including Nora who looks mortified. “I’ve been living here for three weeks for soccer, and it’s awesome to have someone finally move in. It’s been lonely, but now I have someone to play CoD with when the soccer guys are gone.”

I have exactly zero ideas what CoD is, but I perk up when he mentions soccer.

“You must know Nick, right?” I say, and Garrett’s grin somehow stretches wider.

“Hell yeah-” he says, but then glances at my parents and backtracks. “Heck yeah, I know Nick! Eisner’s a beast on the field and a killer guitar player. He brings it out every time I’m over, and man, he’s good.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Good to know Nick’s still as on-brand as he was in high school. 

“Well, I’m gonna head out,” Garrett says. “I have practice, but I wanted to stop by and welcome you to my home. Well, our home—mi casa es su casa.” He grins and heads back through the bathroom. “Nice to meet you, man!” he yells as the door slams shut. 

“He seems like a…lively young man,” my mom says, and I half-heartedly nod. As much as I like Nick, I don’t generally get along that well with athletes, but who knows. It’s a new year and I’m open to anything.

I crack open my window and a breeze sift through. My mom and dad are busy inspecting the bathroom and Nora’s perched on my desk checking her phone. I take out my note’s app and review “SIMON’S OFFICIAL GOALS FOR THE 2015-16 SCHOOL YEAR”. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do all of them. Hopefully, this is as great a year as I’ve dreamed it’ll be.

***

1\. Call home every week

2\. Get into at least one play/musical

3\. Sign up for Harry Potter club and get sorted into Gryffindor 

4\. Find at least one professor I really like and take a class with them 

5\. Figure out what the heck I’m studying 

6\. Go to a gay club 

7\. Get over my irrational fear of concerts and go to one 

8\. Figure out how to navigate Atlanta by myself 

9\. Get a good group of friends 

10\. KISS A BOY!!!!


	2. Chapter 2

It’s the first day of class and I mostly just want to cry. I had planned today meticulously—and yet somehow everything still went wrong. That could be a metaphor for my whole life.  
  
I pull out my leather planner and admire the beautiful engraving on the front. “Abraham,” the golden letters spell out. It was a gift from my mom and it sounds cheesy, but holding on to this little piece of home makes me feel better.  
  
I flip to the schedule I taped in the front of the planner and then to the map in the back. Okay, just two blocks to go. I had gone to the completely wrong building for my first class, which, to my chagrin, ended up being 15 whole blocks from where I need to be.  
  
I decide to sprint the rest of the way and take an elevator up to the fourth floor. I try and slip into class as quietly as possible, but of course everyone stares at me as I enter. My face feels bright red, so I tuck my chin into my chest and slip into the first open seat. I pull out a notebook and quickly scribble everything the professor has written on the board. Luckily, it’s mostly just first day of class housekeeping stuff, so I take a moment to catch my breath. As I’m writing the date in the corner of the page, I feel a tap on my shoulder and I turn around.  
  
“Here’s an extra syllabus,” the guy behind me says, and smiles a little, in a shy kind of way.  
  
I choke out a “thank you” and whip back around.  
  
Oh god, it’s him.  
  
And I was ready for philosophy to be my most boring class.  
  
I had found out about him (okay, about Simon, there’s no point in pretending I don’t know his name) a week ago when a few of the soccer guys and I were hanging out in Nick’s room. Nick was more Garrett’s friend than mine—they had been snapchatting all summer ever since the new student-athlete orientation in June—but Garrett kept bugging me about getting out and meeting people, so I finally gave in.  
  
I liked him. He was kind of goofy and pretentious, but in a good way. And he was cute, too, I’ll admit it, but I had made a set of rules for myself at the beginning of the season and number one was: No Thirsting After Your Teammates. So, I just enjoyed talking to him and somehow, we got on the subject of friends from home. Nick got super excited and insisted “we all watch this sick video.”  
  
We huddled around his beat-up laptop, which he propped up on his bed. The video was called “An Ode to Creekwood High” and it starred Nick and some of his friends. I didn’t except it to be hilarious, but I found myself laughing from the first scene. It opened with a girl with long brown hair and heavy eyeliner standing in front of what must have been Nick’s high school. She looked into the camera with a dead eyed stare and said in a perfect monotone: “I can’t believe I am leaving the best place in the whole world. I am so sad, I loved high school, it was like a little slice of heaven on Earth.”  
  
Next were two girls in line at the cafeteria: “Hey, Anna, isn’t it devastating we won’t be able to eat mystery mush on Mondays anymore?” “You’re right, Morgan, nothing quite compares to the intermingling flavors of different shades of brown.”  
  
Next was a white guy—and if I had thought Nick was cute, this guy was downright adorable—in front of a water fountain. He sighed, then caressed the water fountain. “I’ll miss this guy. He was just the best part of high school. Did you know I once saw a couple make out so furiously against this fountain that one of its screws came lose? We had that in common, buddy. We both loved watching aggressive PDA first thing Wednesday morning.” Then he winked into the camera and I kind of lost it.  
  
I think I made a noise, but luckily only Garrett looked over and he just kind of shrugged because nothing ever fazes Garrett.  
  
I should really just tell him.  
  
Anyways, after walking back to my dorm with Garrett (I had a single on the floor above his), I looked up the video on YouTube. Nick's friends were listed in the description box and I typed in every guy's name into Facebook until I found him. Simon Spier. He was also going to Georgia State! I went through his entire Facebook until I reached 2009, at which point I started feeling creepy. Then I found his Instagram and it was, shall we say, more interesting than his Facebook. There was this one shot of him at the beach that lingered with me as I did laundry, as I ate with Garrett at the dining hall, as I color-coded my school notebooks, as I got ready for bed. Then as I, well.  
  
I had tried to put it out of my head, because what were the odds I would ever see Simon on campus? Except now, here he was, sitting directly behind me, so close I could hear him every time he shifted in his seat. It took everything in me, and I mean everything, not to turn around to look at him.  
  
When class was over, I shot out of my chair and tried to look casual as I put my books away, while glancing at him from the corner of my eye. He was talking to the person next to him, a cute black girl, who was laughing hysterically at something he said. Of course, Simon already had a ton of friends.  
  
I slipped out into the aisle after them and tried not to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help but hear when the girl asked, “Are you going to the soccer opener this weekend? Home games are supposed to be crazy fun.”  
  
“Sure, yeah. Let’s go together!” Simon replied. “Actually, I know someone on the team, my friend from home…”  
  
They headed towards the library and thus out of my earshot. I headed to English, which luckily was in the next building over. If I couldn’t stop smiling during class, well, only I knew why. 

***

“ABRAHAM’S OFFICIAL RULES FOR THE 2015-16 SCHOOL YEAR”  
  
1\. No Thirsting After Your Teammates  
  
2\. Call Mom Every Sunday  
  
3\. Facetime Dad/Lauren/Neonna At Least Twice A Month  
  
4\. Do Not Major In English—You Are Already Weirdly Turning Into Your Dad  
  
5\. Do Not Spend Friday Nights In Your Dorm Room Alone, Reading A Book—Do You Want To Be Known As That One Weird Nerd Forever  
  
6\. Do Not Rely On Garrett To Make Friends  
  
7\. Learn To Like Dining Hall Food  
  
8\. If You Are On First Name Basis With Every Single Librarian It Means You Are Spending Too Much Time In The Library  
  
9\. Join A Fun Club—Maybe Acapella?  
  
10\. Come Out To Someone, It Doesn’t Even Matter Who, Before December


End file.
